Haha sorry - was that a bit blunt? But there are those who have made this statement to another individual. The problem with “God told me…” or “God said…” statements is this: you can’t argue with God. So when people make these bold declarations to one another, even if it doesn’t feel right, we feel trapped. And/or confused. And/or make unwise choices instead of using our brains and actually listening to the person Himself: God!

Boys, please stop saying this to girls.

As romantic as you think it sounds, it actually takes her choice out of the equation.

As far as I know, there are only 2 occasions in the bible when God tells a person to marry another. #1 Hosea - God tells him to marry a prostitute to paint a picture of God’s unfailing, faithful, never-giving-up-on-you love to a failing, faithless, always-giving-up-on-you humanity. Pretty sure He won’t be doing that again. #2 - He tells Joseph to go ahead and marry Mary because she’s pregnant with, you know, the Messiah and all that.

The good news is, you’re not an Old Testament prophet and the Messiah has already come - what a time to be alive! Jokes aside, even if you think an angel appeared to you and told you to marry your crush, let’s wrap some different language around it. And here's why:

YOU CAN NEVER LOVE WITHOUT THE FREEDOM OF CHOOSING TO LOVE

If you’re compelled by some machine to make a decision, you can never love. God will never force you to love Him, nor will He force you to love anybody else - let alone marry them. Yes, He is sovereign. But God’s foreknowledge of a choice doesn’t mean He forces us to choose it. He creates a scenario where people can choose and loves us into submission. But the choice is freely and always given.

EVER WONDERED WHY THE TREE WAS IN THE GARDEN?

Like… come on God. If you didn’t want us to sin, why did you even put the tree (of knowledge of good and evil) in the garden? Way to set us up to fail!

Actually, I’m totally kidding. The tree in the garden set us up to win. Listen up: God is a relational being - He knows a thing or two about it. In order to have true relationship instead of being a robot, He creates the ability for us to have a choice. He created us with an actual freedom to choose relationship because

WHEN RELATIONSHIP IS CHOSEN, IT’S REAL AND LOVE HAS AN EXISTENCE

He put the tree in the garden so we could CHOOSE Him. (And come on… out of ALL the trees in this paradise, it was only ONE that we couldn’t touch. He swung the odds as much in our favour as He possible could!)

He created the ability to choose so we could have TRUE relationship. And so it is with the person you marry. If someone tells you “God told me we’re getting married” - press pause please! Even if everything feels right, if he doesn’t give you the tree in the garden, He’s not reflecting God. If God allows you to choose Him, He’s going to allow you to choose your spouse.

For anyone to violate your freewill would be to violate the very thing necessary for love to flourish & be expressed

It aint true love if there’s no choice in the mix. The reason he gets down on one knee is the same reason God put a tree in the garden: he has to honour the FREEWILL of the girl he's asking. If you want some sort of mechanical response, the question itself self destructs. You’re asking the question because you’re FREE to ask it. And you’re free to ask it because you’re free to love.